FIELD SEASON 62 camera traps are live across Ilam and Panchthar
Eastern Himalaya · 2,200–4,800 m
Keep the forest standing and the red panda stays.
We work with the villages of eastern Nepal to protect the fir and bamboo forest red pandas depend on. Local guardians patrol it, restore it, and count what lives there.
Why this work matters
A small animal with a very narrow home.
Red pandas live only in cool, bamboo-rich forest on the slopes of the Himalaya and the mountains of southwest China. When that forest is cut or broken into pieces, they have nowhere else to go.
<10k
Mature red pandas estimated to remain in the wild.
IUCN Red List
1,240
Hectares of community forest now under local protection.
Ailurus Trust, 2026
38
Forest guardians hired from the villages they patrol.
Ailurus Trust, 2026
62
Camera traps recording on four ridge lines.
Ailurus Trust, 2026
Meet the firefox
Built for a life in the trees.
The red panda is not a small giant panda. It is the only living member of its own family, and it spends most of its life off the ground.
Mostly bamboo
Young bamboo leaves and shoots make up nearly all of its diet, topped up with fruit, acorns and the occasional egg.
Life in the canopy
It sleeps, suns and escapes danger in the branches, and uses its long ringed tail for balance.
Made for the cold
Thick fur covers even the soles of its feet, and in winter it wraps that tail around itself like a blanket.
Our work
Three ways we protect the forest.
Patrols
Forest Guardians
Village-based rangers who walk the ridges each month, log sightings and stop illegal cutting before it spreads.
Restoration
Bamboo Corridors
Replanting the gaps between forest patches so red pandas can move, feed and find mates without crossing open ground.
Research
Community Science
Camera traps, droppings surveys and local knowledge combined into the population data the region never had.
My grandfather cut these trees to sell. Now my son helps me count the pandas living in them. The forest is worth more standing, and the whole village can see it.
Pasang Sherpa
Head guardian, Ilam district
Field notes
News from the ridge.
Three cubs on the Singalila trap line
The first confirmed breeding on the ridge since our cameras went up in 2021, and what it tells us about the new corridor.
12,000 bamboo seedlings go in before the monsoon ends
Four village nurseries delivered this year’s seedlings for the Ilam corridor, the largest planting season so far.
Why we pay guardians a full wage, not a stipend
Protection only lasts when it is someone’s real job. Here is how we set guardian pay and why it matters.
Protect a hectare
$48 keeps one hectare of forest patrolled for a year.
Every hectare pays for guardian wages, trap batteries and seedlings. You get a map pin and a field report each season.